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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443388">my brush paints your skin (as my eyes roam your body)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulhearts/pseuds/gracefulhearts'>gracefulhearts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>there is beauty in art (and also in you) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Professors, F/M, Paint Sex, professors in a relationship, sex with paints</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:07:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,291</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulhearts/pseuds/gracefulhearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben is in the middle of stretching his arms above his head when she gets back, his sweater riding up and exposing a pale strip of skin at his waist. It’s dotted with freckles, and she suddenly wants to connect them with her finger. Or her tongue.</p>
<p>She lifts her eyes up to his as the sweater falls back into place, a light blush coloring her cheeks.</p>
<p>“How do you want me?” he asks suddenly, still standing next to the easel, exactly where he’d been when she left.</p>
<p>
  <em>Underneath me.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(In which Rey can't figure out her painting and Ben offers to help.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>there is beauty in art (and also in you) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597324</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>my brush paints your skin (as my eyes roam your body)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Pick up, pick up</em>, Rey thinks as she bounds down the concrete steps that will take her away from her office and closer to the restaurant that she needs to be.</p>
<p>It’s already 6:25, something she hadn’t realized until it was too late. She’s supposed to meet Ben at 6:30, but there’s no way that that’s going to happen now, since where they’re meeting is about ten minutes away.</p>
<p>The call goes to voicemail. <em>Fuck.</em></p>
<p>She jabs her finger against the ‘end call’ button and stops at the bottom of the stairs, taking a moment to calm down and collect her thoughts. Maybe she should have checked his office to see if he was in before she rushed out, but if he had been, he probably would have stopped by since their offices are on the same floor.</p>
<p>Rey is an art professor specializing in painting at the University of Chicago, having moved here to teach a year and a half ago after getting her graduate degree. She had met Benjamin Solo, another painting professor, on her first day. He was the first person the Dean introduced her to, and the one she was the most interested to meet. She’d heard stories about him, how he used to be Kylo Ren, a famous graffiti artist, before he left the country and went to study in Paris.</p>
<p>He wasn’t at all what she expected, although now she doesn’t even know what that was. Instead of the reckless and cold person she had heard about, Ben had been nothing but kind to her since her first day. The two of them quickly became friends, which didn’t evolve into something more until the beginning of this semester.</p>
<p>Last Friday, he had stopped by her office as he was leaving and asked her if she wanted to go out again, and she had said yes without hesitation. Now, she supposes there won’t be a fourth date if she shows up to the restaurant to find that he’s already left. Even though she doesn’t think he would do that, she still feels terrible about running late.</p>
<p>There’s this painting that she’s been working on for weeks, is getting ready to show it at a gallery in about a month, but she just can’t get it right. Her classes were done at noon and her office hours were over by two, so she stayed late to work on the painting, figuring that she could get a head start on it before the date. However, she lost track of time, and the painting still hadn’t felt right, so she decided to completely redo it at home.</p>
<p><em>Hey</em>, she starts the message, then deletes it seconds later. She has no idea what to say, he’s probably waiting at the restaurant for her already. They had agreed to meet there instead of at one of their apartments, just for simplicity’s sake. Seoul Taco, the Korean-Mexican restaurant that opened in Hyde Park a few years ago, is near the University, and she knew that she’d be coming from there anyway.</p>
<p>Luckily, her phone starts ringing in her hand before she can think of another message.</p>
<p>“Ben,” Rey greets, and that’s what gets her to remember that she needs to start walking if she doesn’t want to be even later.</p>
<p>“Hey, I just saw that you called. What’s up?”</p>
<p>“I’m so, so sorry, I got held up at the studio and didn’t realize what time it was. I’m on my way there now, but I won’t be there for another ten minutes.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about it, I completely understand. Besides, I just walked in and there’s a bit of a wait.”</p>
<p>She exhales slowly, closes her eyes as she nods. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”</p>
<p>“See you.”</p>
<p>On the walk there, Rey tries to forget about the painting and how it isn’t any closer to being finished than it was this morning when she hadn’t even started over. She hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it, hasn’t been sleeping well due to the anxiety over this not being done yet. This is, like, one of her worst nightmares coming true, although she puts all thoughts of it out of her head as she pulls open the door to Seoul Taco.</p>
<p>It takes her a second to see Ben, has to glance past the wall where there are brightly colored boomboxes above the booth/table combination, past the other side where there are high-top tables.</p>
<p>He’s looking up at the menu, taping his foot as he does so, and even from here, she can see the look of concentration on his face that she’s seen when he’s painting or grading projects. She saw him this morning at work, and as she approaches, she sees that he changed into a black knit sweater and jeans. It doesn’t matter, obviously, but she’s seen that sweater on him a few times, and the long sleeves show off a bit of the tattoo on his left wrist, one that she hasn’t seen all of yet.</p>
<p>“Hi,” she says, watching as he first notices her out of the corner of his eye before turning to look at her.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take him too long to realize that she’s in front of him, and once he does, he leans down and presses a kiss to her cheek.</p>
<p>“Get here okay?” he asks, his voice low and his eyes dark with concern as they search her face.</p>
<p>She laces their fingers together, already feeling herself relaxing. <em>I’m just going to have a fun night with Ben and not worry about anything else.</em></p>
<p>“Yeah, everything was fine. Work was stressful, but I’m happy that I’m here with you now.”</p>
<p>He smiles, a soft, guarded smile, as if he’s still not used to hearing things like that. He’s told her that it’s been a while since his last relationship, and her own was two years ago, her last year of grad school, and the guy broke up with her via text.</p>
<p>“Me, too. Let’s talk about work after we order, okay?”</p>
<p>She nods, squeezes his hand once as she looks toward the menu. “Do you know what you’re going to get?”</p>
<p>“I’ve heard that the nachos are really good, but I was thinking maybe we could split them?”</p>
<p>“That’s a good idea. I was talking to Rose earlier and she said that their tacos are really good, so I think I’m going to get those.”</p>
<p>After they order, they sit at one of the tables that has a booth on one side and chairs on the other, underneath the boomboxes. Rey sits on the booth side, sets down their drinks while Ben puts the tray with their food on the table.</p>
<p>“So,” he starts, sitting down in his chair. He reaches for his burrito just as she reaches for her tacos, and their hands brush. A jolt of electricity snakes up her arm, and Rey almost shivers at the feeling. Ben doesn’t seem to notice. “What happened at work?”</p>
<p>“Well, you know how I’m working on that painting for the exhibit at the Art Institute in a few weeks?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” He lifts his burrito to his mouth and tilts his head, bites at the corner from an angle. She can’t seem to look away as he licks his lips, but once her eyes travel up to meet his, she finds that he’s been looking at her this whole time.</p>
<p>Rey had no idea it was possible to be turned on by someone eating a burrito, and yet here she is, in the middle of a taco place in Hyde Park, across from her not-quite boyfriend, in public, no less.</p>
<p>She clears her throat and looks away, down at her own taco. <em>Get a grip on yourself, Rey.</em> “Um, well, it hasn’t been going very well, and I don’t know what it is about it that’s not working. That’s why I was late today, I was working on it and didn’t realize the time.”</p>
<p>He frowns, his eyebrows knitting together at the same time. She wants to reach across the table and smooth out the lines in between his eyebrows with her thumb but doesn’t give in to that thought. “Do you have a picture you could show me? Maybe I can help you figure out what’s wrong.”</p>
<p>“No,” she sighs, taking a bite of her taco. “I wish I did. If you want to, you can come over after dinner and we can look at it together?”</p>
<p>“I’d like that,” he tells her seriously, smiling, before he launches into a story about how one of his students knocked another’s easel over and how paint spilled all over the floor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Later, she flicks on the living room light and leads Ben over to her easel, which is in the corner of the room next to the TV.</p>
<p>Even though her apartment is tiny, it’s hers. It’s the first place she moved into after leaving her shitty foster parents after she turned 18, and it has become this space for her to relax after a long day of work, for her to feel the most at home. There’s a painting on the wall above the turquoise leather couch, and a white IKEA bookshelf that’s half books and half art supplies, her paints and brushes stored in clear plastic bins that she can easily get to whenever necessary.</p>
<p>The living room is attached to the kitchen, which is big enough for the usual appliances plus a wooden dining table and two rickety chairs that she’d bought from some girl she went to college with. On the counters are stacks of cookbooks, since cooking is one of her hobbies, and the fridge is covered in magnets from various places: the Met, which she’d had her first painting at when she was seventeen; the Louvre, which her friend Finn visited the summer before they started grad school; Starry Night, one of her favorite paintings, which Finn had also given her from that same trip; and a magnet from when she went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on a trip last year. </p>
<p>When she and Ben came back here after their second date, it was weird to see him in what had previously been only her space. She just wasn’t used to seeing this tall, broad shouldered, dark-haired sculpture of a man duck underneath her doorways to get from room to room. He wasn’t immediately comfortable here, in the same way that she feels when she goes to someone’s house for the first time, but in the few times that he’s been here since, it seems like he’s grown more used to being here.</p>
<p>“So, this” – she gestures with her free hand to the sketch that sits on the easel, next to the blank canvas - “is the sketch, which I’ve outlined. Since I live on a busy street that always has a lot happening, I figured I could look at it from the perspective of being in the middle of the street and seeing what that would be like. Looking at the buildings from all sides, the cars, and the people. Watching the street stretch on into eternity. For some reason, I just can’t seem to get it right.”</p>
<p>“It’s clear when you’re telling me, but I see what you mean about it not feeling the way that you want it to. How many times have you outlined it?” Ben asks, his gaze moving from the sketch to her.</p>
<p>“A lot,” Rey tells him, huffing out a laugh as she remembers the nights poured over the paper and the canvas, how frustrated she felt that she couldn’t get this painting to look how it does in her head. “I feel so helpless about it and I need to have it ready for this showcase in a month.”</p>
<p>He’s quiet for a moment, is focusing on the sketch again with that same concentrated look on his face from earlier. When he turns to her, he’s biting his lip and there’s a questioning glimmer behind his eyes. “If this is too much, you can totally say no.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” she answers, not seeing where he could be going with this.</p>
<p>His teeth rake along his lip slowly, tantalizingly, before letting go, and she is captivated by it. For a second, she wonders what it would be like to feel his teeth grazing her skin. “You could paint the scene on me.”</p>
<p>It takes her a second to comprehend what he’s saying; she blinks at him for what feels like a minute. “You want me to paint you?”</p>
<p>The tips of his ears redden, and he swallows hard, looks away. “Only . . . if you want to.”</p>
<p>She imagines him lying underneath her while she glides a brush along his smooth, taut skin, his long hair fanned out against the floor and his eyes watching her work, and nods to herself a little, before looking up, drinking in the sight of him from his waist, up his chest, all the way to his face, where his whiskey-colored eyes meet hers.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she says, a little breathlessly. “Let’s do it. I’ll be back, I’m just going to go get a tarp to lay over the carpet.”</p>
<p>Rey walks down the hallway, past the coat closet and the bathroom, to the guest room. It’s a two-bedroom apartment, and one of them is used as a guest room, with a double bed covered in a patterned duvet, a wooden desk in the corner, and a closet where she stores her extra tarps for painting. She doesn’t have room for them on the bookshelf in the living room, plus she thinks that would look odd, so they live at the topmost shelf of the closet.</p>
<p>The shelf is too high for her to reach even standing on her tiptoes, so she usually drags the chair over from the desk and stands on that, which is what she does now.</p>
<p>Ben is in the middle of stretching his arms above his head when she gets back, his sweater riding up and exposing a pale strip of skin at his waist. It’s dotted with freckles, and she suddenly wants to connect them with her finger. Or her tongue.</p>
<p>She lifts her eyes up to his as the sweater falls back into place, a light blush coloring her cheeks.</p>
<p>“How do you want me?” he asks suddenly, still standing next to the easel, exactly where he’d been when she left.</p>
<p><em>Underneath me</em>, she almost says, but shakes her head a little to clear it of that thought.</p>
<p>They haven’t had sex yet, but she’s been thinking about it more often, what it would be like to feel Ben against her, inside her, the thickness of his cock stretching her walls. How it would feel to have his large, strong hands on her thighs or gripping her ass. She’s gotten off on those thoughts alone, with her fingers on her clit and his name a moan on her lips as she comes. </p>
<p>She unfolds the tarp, lays it on the ground before answering. “In whatever way you want.”</p>
<p>The look he gives her is so lustful and heavy with want that she almost looks away, except she’s captivated by it, by him.</p>
<p>Rey makes her way over to him, standing on her tiptoes and touching their foreheads together. His hands automatically come to rest on her waist as their lips meet, and they slide up her back to tangle in her hair, angling her neck so that he can deepen the kiss.</p>
<p>Her heart beats a steady thump thump in her chest as his breath fans her skin, and her hands slip underneath his shirt.</p>
<p>“Is this okay?” she mumbles, gets a throaty yes in return that sends molten desire down to her core.</p>
<p>Her hands wander around his abdomen and chest, his shirt now bunched up at his shoulders. She lifts it over his head and tosses it to the ground, jumps up and braces herself against him so that she can wrap her legs around his waist.</p>
<p>Rey shudders when she feels his large hands leave her hair to grasp her ass but pulls away after a few minutes. “We should . . . I should get to painting you.”</p>
<p>He blinks open slowly, like he’s waking up from a dream, and his long eyelashes brush his cheek. “Right.”</p>
<p>As soon as her feet touch the ground, she goes over to the bookshelf where she keeps her paint and brushes, crouches down to find the one with the water-based paints in it. Those are the ones that she’ll be using, since they are safe to use on skin.</p>
<p>She grabs the box along with a can of various sized brushes and stands, turns around just as she hears fabric hit the floor. Her eyes trail from Ben’s pants, which are now around his ankles, up his bare legs. He’s still wearing his boxers, the rest of him completely bare to her. She locks eyes with him once she reaches his face, tucks the box under her arm and makes her way over to him.</p>
<p>“Are you ready? Nervous? You can tell me if you are.”</p>
<p>He tangles their fingers together, squeezes her hand. “I’m not nervous, I trust you completely.”</p>
<p>“Good, okay,” she breathes out. “Let’s get started then, yeah?”</p>
<p>Ben nods and lies down on the ground. She stands there for a moment, transfixed by the stark contrast of his onyx hair against the white tarp.</p>
<p>She sits beside him and gets to work, takes out the palette and mixing the colors onto it. That takes a few minutes, and once she’s done, she takes a larger brush out of the can. The background of her painting is an aqua sky that fades into white clouds, so that’s what she starts with.</p>
<p>“This might be cold,” she says.</p>
<p>His face lights up with a smile. “That’s okay. What are you starting with?”</p>
<p>“The sky. It starts out blue and goes into the clouds, with the color getting lighter as it goes.”</p>
<p>She swipes the paint in a wide line, covering a strip of his chest with white, before she continues with the rest of it, soon starts on the buildings. She lifts her elbow up, only to see that blocks of green and yellow paint cover her entire arm and most of her shirt. “Shit.”</p>
<p>That side of him, the buildings which she spent so much time outlining and perfecting, are now smudged together.</p>
<p>“Rey, hey, it’s okay. You can just start over, if you want to.”</p>
<p>She’s not looking at him, is staring down at her paint palette as if deciding what to do. “I have an idea.”</p>
<p>With no further explanation, she abandons the paintbrush and straddles him again. Instead of a brush, she runs her hands up and down his bare torso, mixing all of the colors on purpose. Then, she dips her finger into the black paint, paints lines again to make the objects more animated: the swirls of color become buildings, cars, and streetlights.</p>
<p>“This is beautiful,” Ben breathes.</p>
<p>Blush creeps up on her cheeks, and she stops dotting more white and blue paint onto his shoulders with her fingers to fill in the gaps of skin and presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Thank you, are you okay? I know that laying on the floor for long periods of time isn’t always the most comfortable.”</p>
<p>“I’m good,” he mumbles.</p>
<p>“Almost done,” she replies, moving so that she’s sitting on him, her legs on either side his waist.</p>
<p>Ten minutes later, the painting is finished, and she leans back to survey her work.</p>
<p>It <em>is</em> beautiful. The dips and curves of his muscles give a nice texture to it, one that hadn’t been there when the paint was on canvas. The textured look was exactly the thing that she was going for, she just hadn’t realized until she saw the colors spread across the plane of his chest.</p>
<p>“Rey,” he manages, lust burning behind his eyes.</p>
<p>“I want you.” She stands and leaves her clothes where the edge of the tarp meets the carpet before settling on top of him again.</p>
<p>“Can I touch you?” His eyes are focused on her lacy, olive green bralette, but they flick up to meet hers, his voice impossibly soft.</p>
<p>“Yes.” She falls to his lap as he sits up, her fingers curving around his shoulders to steady herself.</p>
<p>A shiver runs down her spine and her breath catches in her throat when his thumb ghosts over her bralette, brushing against her nipple. Her eyes flutter closed at the sensation, and she leans into his touch once his other hand falls to her waist, right above the waistband of her underwear.</p>
<p>Their mouths find each other’s in a messy, scorching kiss that makes wetness pool between her thighs. Rey’s hands fumble with the hem of her bralette, her hand bumping Ben’s wrist, and she pulls away from his mouth to lift the garment over her head. It flutters to the ground as his mouth chases after hers, captures her lips in his. Her arms thread around his neck as her fingers tangle in his hair, and she arches over him, hardly noticing her knees digging into the tarp beneath them.</p>
<p>“Ben.” Her heart beats quickly in her chest as she shoves her underwear to the ground, feels it lying at her feet. “Please.”</p>
<p>He studies her for a moment, his pupils blown wide, and then he nods, trailing kisses down her body until he reaches her center. She can feel the cool paint dripping onto her legs as his tongue slides easily between her folds, but she doesn’t mind at all. It draws a low moan from her lips and makes pressure build in her stomach.</p>
<p>His name is the only thing on her mind, the only word on her lips as her orgasm ripples through her, his tongue pumping in and out of her as her eyes flutter closed.</p>
<p>They sit in silence for a few moments, and she takes a few deep breaths to steady the erratic beating of her heart before she opens her eyes. He’s sitting upright and cross-legged next to her, his bare chest a whirl of colors.</p>
<p>Her eyes don’t leave his as her hands find his shoulders and she moves herself onto his lap. </p>
<p>His cock brushes up against her stomach, tenting against the fabric of his boxers. The air is charged with electricity, and he looks like a vision with his mussed hair, swollen lips, and the setting sun outlining him with a golden hue.</p>
<p>She closes the distance between them, feels his hands on her back, pulling her flush against him. The paint is still wet, so it gets onto her skin, but she doesn’t notice the coolness of it contrasted with Ben’s warm skin under her fingers. She doesn’t realize that her hand has knocked over the palette still full of the paint that she used on him until she’s stuck her hand in it, and she pulls away from the kiss to see that there’s a yellow handprint on the tarp.</p>
<p>Ben’s eyes follow hers to the paint, and his eyes light up as he dips his hand into it. His paint-covered hand first lands underneath her jaw as he tilts her head up to press another kiss to her lips. Then, he slowly, agonizingly, moves it down, presses it against her shoulder, leaves a trail of paint from her shoulder to her breast, where he leaves another handprint. He drags his hand to her naval, where it stops.</p>
<p>“I shouldn’t finger you with my painted hand,” he murmurs hotly against her ear, capturing it with his teeth.</p>
<p>“I don’t–” She tries to keep her voice steady, but her words fade into nothing as the impact of his words reaches her core. “Ben, I . . .”</p>
<p>“What?” he whispers, moving his hand over to her waist.</p>
<p>“I want you inside me,” she tells him, tangling her fingers in his hair and coloring half of it yellow. It’ll have to be washed out later, but she doesn’t care. “Right now.”</p>
<p>All she wants is him. He’s the only thing she can think about.</p>
<p>“I want that, too,” he answers, pecking her lips as he lies her down on the tarp, right next to the spilled paint. “Do we need a condom?”</p>
<p>Rey shakes her head. “I’m on the pill.”</p>
<p>He nods and straddles her. “Ready?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>He grasps his dick in his non-painted hand and positions himself at her entrance, slides into her slowly, not taking his eyes off of hers the whole time. </p>
<p>She sighs as the length of him stretches her out, makes her feel full, and the sigh fades into a groan once he begins to move against her.</p>
<p>The hand not in his hair finds the tarp and tangles it between her fingers as his thrusts gain speed, as the only sounds that fill her ears are his breathing and his thighs slapping against hers. Her hand finds the paints and she rests it against his ass, leaving another bright yellow handprint.</p>
<p>Ben flips them over, the edges of his hair splayed across the tarp. Some of the strands land in the paint, but he doesn’t seem to mind. She grins at him, winds the ends of his hair around her finger as she comes, collapsing against him. He follows not long after, groans as his orgasm washes over him.</p>
<p>“I haven’t done that before,” she says some time later. She’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, and when she returned, still covered in paint, he didn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around her and pull him into his side.</p>
<p>He’s warm, and his breathing has since evened out. “Me either, but I’m really glad that we did.”</p>
<p>Rey looks up at him, finds that he’s smiling at her softly, and a smile twitches at her own lips. “Yeah, same. Although I guess we should go wash this off.”</p>
<p>“Probably.”</p>
<p>He steps into the spray of the shower five minutes later, holds out his hand for her to join him. There is water already in his hair, which has dried paint knotted in it.</p>
<p>She takes it, steps in after him, and closes the glass door as she stands in front of him. He’s looking down at her, his back to the water. The room is already filling with steam, rising out of the shower.</p>
<p>He leans down and brushes her hair behind her ear, lets his hand rest there as he leans down to kiss her. Her tongue slides into his mouth, sweeps over his lips and his teeth.</p>
<p>Eventually, they stop kissing and just stand under the water, staring at each other before they burst into laughter.</p>
<p>“I don’t even know why I’m laughing,” she breathes out, reaching for her washcloth and squeezing her body wash onto it.</p>
<p>Ben’s shoulders shake with silent laughter. “I don’t know either.”</p>
<p>She smiles as she rubs the washcloth against his skin, the soap coming away colored instead of white. The paint comes right off, luckily, swirls down into the drain as a rainbow stream.</p>
<p>They both watch it disappear, and she’s already looking at him by the time he meets her eye.</p>
<p>He gestures to the washcloth, which she hands over to him. He works first at her chest, before sinking down to his knees to get it off of her legs. </p>
<p>“You might want to close your eyes, Ben.” Rey lathers shampoo in his hair, waits until he’s closed his eyes to tilt his head back into the water and rinse the color out of his hair.</p>
<p>“Thank you.” His voice is quiet, his eyes soft as he gazes at her, and he stands, hangs up the washcloth on the hook once he’s done.</p>
<p>“Thanks for offering to help me with my painting,” she replies, smiling at him softly.</p>
<p>They get out of the water then and dry off with the towels she set by the sink before they even got in. </p>
<p>The towel is low on his waist when he turns to her, takes her hand in his again. “Rey, can I tell you something?”</p>
<p>“Of course. What’s up?” she asks, biting her lip. There’s a serious tone to his voice, and it makes anxiety knot in her stomach.</p>
<p>“I know that we already admitted that we have feelings for each other before we even started dating, which. . . I feel like what I have is so much more than that; I can’t put words to it. But I do know that I want to keep going to new restaurants with you. And I want to keep trying new things that may or may not involve paint. Rey, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I want you to be my girlfriend.”</p>
<p>She’s speechless for a moment. Her mind is completely blank, and she opens her mouth to say something, <em>anything</em>, but words are failing her right now. So she kisses him, loops her arms around his neck and pulls her down to him.</p>
<p>“I’d love that too,” she mumbles against his lips. The towel falls from around her but he catches it with the hand that isn’t holding hers, reaches behind him to set it on the counter near the sink.</p>
<p>After they shower, the two of them make dinner, homemade spaghetti with sauce. Rey teaches him how to roll it through the pasta maker, and Ben takes her hand and spins her around to every slow song that comes on Spotify.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A month later, Rey mills around the Art Institute of Chicago, waiting for her show to start. She’s fiddling with the sleeves of her dress out of nervous habit. Ben is coming straight from work, since he teaches a night class this semester.</p>
<p>She feels someone behind her just as the gallery doors open and turns to see her boyfriend beaming at her.</p>
<p>“Hi,” he greets, pecking her cheek. “I meant to get here earlier, but the traffic was so bad.”</p>
<p>“That’s okay,” Rey replies, smiling at him. Her heart glows when his eyes meet hers, and she hands him the extra glass of champagne that she picked up. “I’m really glad that you could come.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”</p>
<p>The thing that had been missing the whole time was the textures, which she only realized after she painted it on him. It had been the lightbulb moment that she needed, and she’s so grateful for that.</p>
<p>“Still,” she replies, grinning as the doors open and everyone files in. “It means the world to me that you’re here.”</p>
<p>“Beautiful,” Ben breathes out once they’re stopped in front of her painting. The way that the light hits it really brings out the textured look she was going for.</p>
<p>“It is,” she replies, turning to look at him. He’s already looking at her, which means that he has been this whole time.</p>
<p>He smiles as he presses his lips to her hair. “And so is its artist.”</p>
<p>Rey leans her head against his shoulder, smiles up at him. She’s relaxed, with her boyfriend at her side and her finished painting finally, after months of hard work, out in the world.</p>
<p>There has been so much color in her life since coming to Chicago. She has the best job and the best boyfriend, both of which she loves very much. Her and Ben haven’t said it yet, but they will, she thinks. She can see it in his eyes when he looks at her, can feel it in her heart when she thinks of him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! You can come find me on twitter @gracefulhearts!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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